Singer John Rich let off-duty cop borrow his gun the night of Vegas massacre; hear him tell riveting story

Country music star John Rich told a riveting story about the Sunday night mass shooting in Las Vegas, where he experienced the terror, first-hand.

Rich has performed all over the world and was never so impressed as he was by the brave police officers who ran toward danger on October 1.

Rich, of the duo Big & Rich, had played at the Route 91 Harvest music festival shortly before crazed gunman Stephen Paddock killed 59 people and injured more than 500.

After he performed, Rich went on to play for fans at a nearby bar he owns. He got a call about the shooting as it was happening in real time and feared for the patrons in his bar.

An off-duty Minneapolis police officer asked Rich if he had a gun on him and then asked if he could borrow it to keep vigil over the restaurant. Rich told Fox News (see video below):

He came up to me and showed me his badge and he said, 'I'm an officer and I am not armed' and asked me, 'Are you armed?' I said, 'Yes sir, I am. I am armed.'

I have my concealed weapon permit. And he said, 'Can I have your firearm so I can hold point on the front door?' So I handed over my firearm to him. Everyone got behind him. And for about two hours without flinching, this guy kept point on that front door just in case someone came through.

Rich is a vocal Trump supporter who does a lot of charity work benefiting veterans and law enforcement. He said country-music fans will no doubt rise to the occasion to help Las Vegas in the aftermath of this tragedy. "I would expect a really strong response out of all of country music," he said.

He recalled that during his performance at the Route 91 festival (shortly before Stephen Paddock's shooting rampage), the crowd shared a transcendent moment of unity he will never forget:

Every show, we bring up veterans and active duty up on stage [to honor them]. At one point in the show, we had all 22,000 people singing in unison 'God Bless America.'

There's no race in that. There's no politics in that. There's no religion in that. That's just America with one voice all singing a song about our country. That was going on two hours before the shooting started. (see Twitter video by Aimee Wenske below)

Clueless liberals are foaming at the mouth over "gun control" after the Las Vegas shooting. But why do they stay silent about the countless black-on-black shootings and murders that occur every weekend in Chicago?

Chicago - which has had a Democratic mayor since 1927 - has some of the toughest gun-control laws in the United States. That's working out really well for them: